Back to basics for technology leadership

It all started in 2003 during the development of the Innovation Review for what was then the Department of Trade and Industry—the idea of a Technology Strategy Board, that is. The review, published in December of that year and for which I was the lead official under the then Science Minister David Sainsbury, stressed the importance to the UK of a balanced and long term approach towards technology strategy—balanced in terms of the sectors and themes to be covered as well as the mix of policies. By October 2004, following a high-level recruitment campaign, the board was up and running and beginning to debate the major themes around which a cohesive technology strategy might be forged.

What’s most surprising about the much anticipated Sainsbury Review, which devotes a chapter to the TSB, is its lack of focus on the board’s prime objective.

In the original concept, the themes were to reflect significant social or policy challenges in areas in which the UK’s strengths would encourage business to accelerate economic growth—themes that would address issues such as healthcare in an ageing society or environmentally friendly transport. The idea was to agree the key themes, allocate funding to each and then work with industry to develop roadmaps with a purpose and technology drivers over a 5 to 10-year time frame.

Such help would enable business to exploit the UK’s capabilities more efficiently to build new products and services. To this end, the Knowledge Transfer Networks were overhauled and re-structured to provide a knowledgeable forum from which industry could identify strategic gaps, and the TSB could agree and fund projects to close those gaps over a three-year period. 

At the same time, the DTI Innovation Group arranged cross-departmental workshops on the emerging themes and to identify common areas of technology needs. By mid-2005, a Cabinet committee had been set up to voice cross-departmental innovation initiatives (including the use of public procurement) at the heart of government.

The 2004 Spending Review allocated a modest budget to the new TSB. The board wanted to engage with business quickly and used the initial themes developed from the Innovation Report to call for proposals in November 2004 at a level of about £100 million. The idea was to develop the strategic themes and have regular calls for proposals around these themes. Allowing time for projects to be submitted, approved and started meant that expenditure would be low in the first year and then ramp up in the final year to nearly £200m, but remain within the overall three-year budget. The TSB would then make a case in the 2006 SR for an increased budget that, if based on the same rising trajectory, would result in an annual expenditure by 2010 of some £500m.

All of these actions were designed to make the TSB a powerful instrument of technology policy, providing clear strategic direction and a degree of predictability for government support to business. So what happened? Unfortunately, the TSB retrenched to a process of six-monthly competitions for funding R&D projects without an obvious strategic theme to frame the  priority areas for technology or clarity over the future funding level.

And now the Sainsbury Review potentially dilutes the TSB effort further with several new (and somewhat bureaucratic) small proposals that will not enable UK businesses to reach critical mass in the activities that add value to the economy.

When the TSB was set up, its focus was determined by experienced civil servants who had close contact with industry and who understood the changes taking place in the global economy. Positive feedback came from business and universities, and many other governments, including those of France and the US, were keen to talk about these ideas in developing their own innovation strategies.  There can be little doubt that the initial projects that the board supported have taken UK capability forward in key areas of technology.

Towards the end of 2005, however, two things occurred that have effectively slowed the momentum and undermined the rationale behind the TSB.  First, the government replaced the 2006 SR with its second Comprehensive Spending Review, but the CSR was not due until a year later—it was announced yesterday. As a result, the board’s call for proposals in November 2006 offered a much reduced level of funding compared with previous calls. The critical point about the budget is that limited funds force the TSB to stay in the area of small scale, early stage, applied research, which is far from the market and close to basic research.

In contrast, the CBI has been calling for an increase in TSB funding to £600m per annum. Surprisingly, the board’s departing interim chief executive is quoted as saying that he would not know how to spend this sort of money effectively, not in the short term anyway [RF 12/9/07, p6]. Such an attitude appears to overlook the importance and high cost of ‘demonstration’ in turning technology into innovative products and services. Of course, suppliers and business users should contribute to that, but a strategy devoid of scaleable demonstrators will not move the broad base of industry at a pace to keep the UK competitive in a globalised economy.

Second, changes at the top of the DTI resulted in changed priorities for innovation. The Cabinet committee disappeared, quietly, and innovation policy was integrated into the Office of Science and Technology (OST). This, in turn, led directly to the proposal to turn the TSB into a so-called ‘arms length body’, an executive non-departmental public body, which would act like a research council in distributing grants.

Finally, in the most recent government reshuffle, innovation policy (now with Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills) has been separated from business and enterprise policy. Moving the TSB from the business policy nexus into OST, and then relocating to Swindon with the research councils, has not only cut the link with business policy, but also with the complementary levers of policies to promote innovation—regulations, standards, metrology, public procurement and skills.

At least the Sainsbury Review reinforces what we have known for several years, that most ot the UK’s ‘value added’ does not come from its R&D intensive sectors, and it does recognise the importance of ‘technology users’ in the service sectors. But while the review notes that the linear model for economic growth is wrong, the  whole tenor of the review seems to be based on just such a model. The claim that “the majority of radical innovations spring from basic research” is not supported by  evidence. Indeed, this claim flies in the face of what Alec Broers, chair of the House of Lords Science and Technology Committee, had to say at the Foundation for Science and Technology in July: “The vast majority of new technologies are created by bringing together and developing capabilities that have been developed all over the world...They depended upon scientific discoveries but none...emerged directly from basic science.” 

What needs to happen now? A new chief executive, Iain Gray of Airbus UK, takes up his appointment at the beginning of November. He has a tough task to recover from the lost momentum. Here are some suggestions.

First, the TSB must move beyond simply being a research council for industry and get commitment from the Prime Minister’s Office and the Treasury that the TSB will be used as the prime catalyst for ensuring world beating policy on technology and innovation. 

Second, as a matter of urgency, the TSB should identify six major themes that will be its focus for developing the technology strategy for the next few years and galvanise relevant industry/university engagement behind these themes in real ‘open innovation’ networks.

Third, the Cabinet Committee on Technology and Innovation should be re-instated with the TSB’s CEO reporting regularly and given the opportunity to point out the barriers to progress (not least from government departments around the table).   

And fourth, annual funding of the TSB should be increased to at least £600m in 2010. With whatever budget it has, the TSB needs to look for leverage through partnership with others, and focus on those half a dozen strategic themes.

To conclude. The TSB should forget this November’s call unless it has a clear strategy and can identify gaps in technology capability that need supporting now. It should show that it is different by providing business and research with the long-term vision and commitment they crave. It should break from the shackles of the six-monthly call and give its programme managers the flexibility to develop the holistic programmes (as envisaged in the 2003 Innovation Review) in collaboration with a rationalised KTN structure, against clear performance targets over the next three years.

Can Britain take the pace in the global talent race?

The lasting impact of David Sainsbury’s report, The Race to the Top: A review of government’s science and innovation policies, published last week, will depend critically on three things. Is the picture of the UK’s economy right? Because if it isn’t then the solutions won’t match future needs. Is the picture of global knowledge constraints right? Because if it isn’t we will be out of sync with action elsewhere. And, are the disparate parts of government going to respond in a constructive and supportive way? Because many of the outcomes depend on those disparate parts getting their collaborative act together.

Many people believe that the UK has a history of great invention but poor application—a deficit in knowledge transfer. Sainsbury says that “in a number of critical areas we are doing better than is commonly thought” and “there has been a dramatic increase in KT from British universities”. That’s good. Creaky, oak-panelled mechanisms are getting slicker.

But, outside, we have a global war for talent, identified by studies such as the US National Academies’ report in 2005, Rising Above The Gathering Storm: Energizing and employing America for a brighter economic future.  Stars are rising in the East. Other countries see the risks of a dearth of competent science-literate professionals. And some of the responses are massive. The US Competitiveness Initiative commits $5.9 billion (£2.9bn) in 2007 to increase research investments, encourage entrepreneurship and build school education. The total budget request for R&D in the US this year is $137bn, more than 50 per cent up on 2001. Compare that with what’s on offer in the UK.

The focus across the globe is partly about knowledge creation but mostly about its use. KT mechanisms are important but you can source knowledge all over the place. Bright and able people are the best way of transferring and exploiting knowledge. The single most important constraint is the supply of those people.

Back home, Sainsbury notes two cross-cutting performance issues: the different requirements of manufacturing and services; and the role of HEIs in supporting a diversity of excellence. The UK economy is low on manufacturing, which is a mismatch with our research strengths in sciences. We are much stronger in the knowledge-based industries, including services and financials, which appear to be light on R&D. What this means is that measures that address traditional research throughput to manufacturing are only partially effective across the value base of the economy. What would most benefit the KBIs is, wait for it, a strong supply of bright and able people. That puts us smack centre in the global talent war.

The review also addresses that third question, the weaknesses that lead the disparate parts of government to go their own way with little sharing and coordination. Whitehall has not been a learning organisation when it comes to KT. But the proposed simplification and strengthening of structures and processes will concentrate resources and make life easier for entrepreneurs.

So why is it difficult to feel enthusiastic? It’s because these ideas are a bit mechanistic. Sure, we need the right structures and processes, not least because the wrong ones are barriers that drag innovation down. But the right ones work only when there are people to work them.

For me, the most important section is Chapter 7: Educating a new generation of young scientists and engineers. This chapter is about the supply of people trained in science and engineering. It is about better incentives, training and support for school teachers to increase the supply of talented young people to higher education. That is the most important thing. It is no good providing advice about future careers to people disaffected by the present. We need more, better teachers working in enriched facilities with a decent, stimulating curriculum freed from the dead hand of 20th century science.

People will win the race to the top, not organisations. The rest of the review is about clearing the track; Chapter 7 is about putting the athletes in place. Sainsbury sees what needs to be done to match other countries, I believe. If government departments respond, and manage their infrastructure, then a significant boost to the UK’s innovation strengths is possible—so long as we allow the next generation of innovators a good run-up. People who entered secondary school in September will do their GCSEs in 2012. It takes time to get a change in the supply of talent—and the sooner that the government acts on Sainsbury the better.

Making innovation taste better

In his foreword to The Race to the Top, David Sainsbury makes bold claims for the restorative powers of his new recipe in words that will almost certainly come back to haunt him: “In the future it will no longer be necessary to start every report of this kind with the dreary statement that, while the UK has an excellent record of research, we have a poor record of turning discoveries into new products and services”.

His long-awaited review is a door-stopper that tours almost every conceivable aspect of the malaise of the UK’s innovation system (or “ecosystem”). Sainsbury plainly believes that he has found the Holy Grail, the ultimate answer to the ultimate question of what is “wrong” with the UK’s innovation system. These “findings” are capped off with recommendations for salvation. One wonders why, if life is that simple, the UK has been struggling with these well-rehearsed issues for 150 years?

The leitmotif of the review may well come to be its emphasis on the concept of the innovation ecosystem: “an economy’s rate of innovation depends on a range of activities and the links between them.” Such semi-official public endorsement of this concept marks the formal adoption of an approach to innovation policy that has increasingly held sway since Labour came to power in 1997. Such approaches are grounded in the axiomatic belief of the Blair/Brown governments that the primary job of the state is to assist the development of private business as the best way to enrich citizens. One can argue about the virtues or vices of such an approach—but, sadly, the review merely unquestioningly accepts it. However, it may be useful for those seeking public funding and other support to have such a ringing endorsement of their role.

Despite running the ecosystem concept up the flagpole, the review consistently fails to salute it, which suggests a failure to engage at a higher level with what it might really mean. For instance, the discussion of the role of higher education in the ecosystem is firmly embedded in a concept of the linear extraction of knowledge from higher education institutions to the private sector. Thus, universities are reduced to supply-side providers: “We briefly survey the measurable addition to the stock of knowledge made by public sector research”. At the same time, there is no discussion of knowledge pooling, knowledge commons or knowledge sharing.

Just as the underlying conceptualisations are either not new or flawed, so is the evidence. Sainsbury presents a comprehensive and thorough restatement of what is widely known, understood or (more often) simply asserted. Some of it, such as the explanations of value chains or the operations of venture capital markets, does not even reach undergraduate level.

These restatements of fact and ‘fact’ are supplemented throughout the report with recommendations. Many of these, as you might expect given the contributors to the review exercise, are not surprising. For instance, universities have been complaining all summer about the squeeze on Knowledge Transfer Partnership funds—and the review recommends doubling their number on the basis of evidence generated by, well, the universities and the private organisations who run the current scheme.

While the review offers little that’s new or enlightening, it will bring much cheer to many quarters as there is something for everyone. Whether that resolves the malaise is, of course, another issue. But all of this begs the question as to why this is the best that could be produced?

The UK government is now thoroughly hooked on the notion of ‘evidence-based’ policy-making, and the review “builds on what we believe is an evidence-based appraisal of our innovation performance”. Now, “evidence-based” sounds as wholesome and incontestable as “innovation ecosystems”, but the name belies an approach to policy-making that has inherent and potentially fatal weaknesses.

The essence of evidence-based policy is one of ‘bad science’—generating evidence that sustains government policy rather than questioning it, challenging it and coming up with new (and perhaps unpopular) solutions. In fact, it might be more aptly termed ‘policy-based evidence’. The review smacks of this—highly selective ‘evidence’, unsubstantiated assertions and unquestioned assumptions. A leavening of scepticism attached to the ‘evidence’ provided by those who have ostensibly failed to deliver what the government wants would have given the review a hard and challenging edge.

There might be nothing wrong with this if the solution proposed were to be likely to work—but the ‘evidence base’ of UK struggles with innovation over the past 150 years suggests otherwise. A real question for Sainsbury might be how it is that “a review of government’s science and innovation policies” can be so lacking in imagination, intellectual-robustness and, well, innovative thought.

Another small step in the right direction

During David Sainsbury’s long tenure as the minister responsible for science and innovation a number of landmark reports were published reviewing the state of science, technology and innovation policy, notably the Innovation Report, the Lambert Report and the Ten-year Investment Framework for Science and Technology. However, there was always a sense that these exercises were carried out in isolation from one another despite the multi-ministry endorsements that they carried.

In this post-ministerial review, Sainsbury has aimed to achieve a synthesis of policy, particularly in the areas where its predecessors overlapped and sometimes muddied the waters. The result contains no surprises, but subtly shifts the emphasis still further towards innovation and knowledge transfer as the justification and driving force behind government support for science. Nonetheless, all stakeholders will be relieved at the headline recommendation that the increase for basic science funding, foreseen in the Ten Year Framework, should continue, along with (regrettably, in diminishing order of probability) more money for the Technology Strategy Board and a call for other government departments to increase their performance and improve the quality of policymaking by investing more in R&D.

This is a report that aims to be well grounded in the latest thinking on innovation policy—a chapter is devoted to describing the UK’s innovation ecosystem and there is extensive analysis of the reasons for apparent lack of R&D intensity, including the high service component in the economy. The issue of innovation in services is much discussed, though no new ideas are offered beyond an endorsement of the current approach in the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills that was stimulated by NESTA’s Hidden Innovation report [RF 20/06/07 p16].

Sainsbury has been keen to avoid the accusations of ‘linear model’ thinking that were attached to the early part of his ministerial tenure when innovation policy seemed synonymous with the promotion of spin-off companies. That is not to say that this issue has gone away, but it is a mature treatment focused on hi-tech clusters around universities, complex funding arrangements and identifying insufficient proof of concept funds as the main deficiency in the supply of venture capital, with recommendations for regional development agencies to establish these.

Knowledge transfer is another focus, with research councils set to come under still more pressure to improve performance in this area and extend substantially KT partnerships. Sainsbury has struggled to find a way of recognising that different types of universities have different roles to play in KT and, in particular, to find a role for those that are less research-intensive. However, the result is obscured by an unfortunate attempt at a new nomenclature. This assumes that if a university is not “research intensive”, then it is “business-facing” and, presumably, vice versa—an assumption contradicted by the evidence on links with business.

The first group are defined as focusing on “curiosity-driven research, teaching and KT”, and the second on “the equally important economic mission of professional teaching, user-driven research, and problem solving with local and regional companies”. Reference to “regional universities” would have given a clearer signal and perhaps opened the way to more innovative funding models for this kind of work than the adjustments to HEIF funding that are proposed.

A clear winner in this report is the Technology Strategy Board, which, apart from a ringing endorsement of its present activities such as Innovation Platforms, is put forward for a broader leadership role in defragmenting innovation support. This fragmentation is the cumulative result of the large number of micro-initiatives in this domain over the past decade—one must say with ministers as key culprits in their search for positive announcements to make.

The targets for the new joined-up approach are research councils, RDAs and government departments. One area of fragmentation needing early attention will be the effect of the recent division of the late Department of Trade and Industry! An interesting new role is as the repository for information about the competitive strategy of industries—which would be the closest government has come to coordination of a business sector in three decades.

This report brings demand-side innovation policy fully into the mainstream, using public procurement and regulation to stimulate innovation rather than stifle it. As well as rolling these into the Innovation Platforms—already underway—government departments are urged to adopt innovative procurement practices. The challenge is not one of knowing what should be done but rather of doing it.

A more focused proposal is a fundamental restructuring of the UK’s Small Business Research Initiative, which requires government departments to spend 2.5 per cent of their R&D budgets on small businesses. This has tended to disappear in consultancy rather than promoting innovative S&T solutions to policy problems. The TSB once again is proposed as the agent to effect a transformation. A negative suggestion is the exclusion of the social sciences and humanities from qualifying, at a time when other parts of the review clearly recognise the need for interdisciplinary approaches to innovation in a knowledge and service-based economy.

In sum, this a thoughtful and comprehensive document but, not surprisingly from the man responsible for the present set of policies and institutions, the movement forward is incremental rather than radical. The steady rise of innovation and KT as drivers was already there, but the research community has yet to absorb its full implications.

Yet more responses

Responses to Sainsbury continue. Here's the CBI, the Royal Society of Chemistry, the Institute of Physics, Universities UK, the Campaign for Mainstream Universities, and the Regional Development Agencies (DOC).
 

As the dust settles

Overall, the tone of the reaction today - emphasised off the record - is that most readers have found the review worthy but dull. I seem to find it more interesting than most (see Sainsbury's new ideology), but am also more sceptical about the likelihood of the important bits being implemented.

I started the day wondering how it would compare with Ian Taylor's task force report for the Conservatives. The answer is, it's a dead heat: they've both come up with a headline promising £1bn for their preferred hi-tech funding agency, the Technology Strategy Board in Labour's case and the Innovative Products Agency in Taylor's.

Universities I think will be most directly interested in the HEIF language. We've known for a long time that a switch from competition to formula was coming, but now we have a political steer on the kind of formula to expect.

The review invents a new category of institution, the "business-facing university". No vice-chancellor these days is going to accept that theirs is anything but a BFU, and Universities UK has politely pointed this out already. But the language is still significant. Basically, I think it means that the cap limiting how much the Russell Group can get will remain, ensuring that smaller but increasingly respected places such as Hertfordshire, De Montfort and Manchester Met will get strong support. HEIF will remain a broad church with around 75 per cent of institutions getting significant funding. My bet is that the Comprehensive Spending Review on Tuesday will push HEIF's budget to around £150m by year three.

I'm extremely dubious about the schools agenda, and find it depressing to see the BBC and other media going with the flakiest part of the whole thing. Action's needed no doubt, but I don't think the government has the teachers or schools to do it. I'd like to see a survey of timetables in one or two inner city areas this year to see how many actually are offering the triple science option ministers have promised to any of their pupils.

I hope you've found Day 1 of our blog interesting. Check back next week for the big spending decisions, and reports from Laura Hood at the big Lisbon conference on the European Research Area. Meanwhile, why not add your own thoughts on the whole thing using the Comment option below?

Responses continue

Another batch of responses to Sainsbury:

Institute of Biology Download IoB.doc

Design Council Download design_council.doc

Technology Strategy Board Download TSB.doc

University and College Union Download UCU.doc

Tomorrow's papers

The BBC website has gone with the science education campaign as the most important aspect of the Sainsbury Review. That seemed to be the consensus of the science correspondents at Number 10 this morning, so expect to see the same angle in the major papers tomorrow.

TSB money

The government has clarified what exactly the Technology Strategy Board's £1 billion consists of:

• £700 million to Technology Strategy Board - this is the TSB's CSR settlement money for the next three years which would have been announced as part of DIUS's overall CSR settlement next week. It is separate to the ring-fenced science budget, which was the subject of an early CSR settlement.

• £120 million is money committed by the research councils earmarked to be spent jointly with the TSB. This money is part of the ring-fenced science budget's CSR settlement, which was announced in March. The funding is over three years.

• £180 million is money which will be earmarked by the RDAs to spend jointly on projects with the TSB. This is money that is part of the RDAs CSR settlement (being announced on Tuseday) and will be spent over three years.

More responses

And here are responses to Sainsbury from The Royal Society, the Bioindustry Association (PDF), the  Campaign for Science and Engineering (PDF), and the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry (PDF).